SitS NSF- Field deployable sensing of the plant-soil interface: innovative bio-mimetic robots to understand dynamic soil processes and accelerate root and rhizosphere productivity

近年来，农业实践的进步提高了作物产量，但代价是土壤质量。土壤和植物根系是陆地固碳的关键组成部分。该区域的物理、化学和生物学在全球有机碳、氮和水循环中发挥着核心作用，并在很大程度上推动了植物的生产力。土壤的不透明性，加上土壤-根系系统的动态性质，严重限制了直接观测，而直接观测可以作为土壤和植物管理的一部分进行精确干预。地下勘探技术的新发展为探索根系及其周围土壤环境之间的复杂关系提供了机会。研究人员将整合新型生物启发机器人技术;特别是用于土壤和近根传感以及根生长和动态图像捕获的光纤土壤内窥镜，以及用于测量水和土壤有机碳动态的新型土壤传感技术。开发这套新颖的工具将使新的手段来询问土壤，特别是解决有关根的问题，植物的“隐藏的一半”。这种跨学科的努力有可能在时间和空间尺度上推进当前的地下传感器系统，以实现直接影响粮食生产力和安全的育种工作。该项目建立在激发女孩对科学和工程的兴趣和参与的既定方案基础上，促进公众参与科学，并促进对早期职业科学家的培训。而碳直接在根部土壤界面严重限制了阐明体与根际土壤过程的时空变化的能力，土壤水力接触、根际代谢物分析和土壤有机碳形式，用于植物育种和作物管理计划。这项工作有可能显着解开几个科学问题，包括：1）了解植物根系如何影响根际的生物物理环境，以及2）量化根系分泌物如何改变根际水分和土壤有机质形成的关键过程。研究人员将使用两种新方法来导航和感知根系和土壤，并将干扰降到最低。这些进展将允许对近根和土壤环境进行时空测量，这是农业系统中一个重要但被忽视的组成部分，地下储存的碳量往往超过地上储存。此外，在玉米田间试验中整合地上和地下环境数据将有助于详细了解植物表型与土壤特性的相互关系。该奖项是通过“土壤中的信号（SitS）”征集获得的，国家科学基金会和美国农业部国家粮食和农业研究所之间的合作伙伴关系该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Advances in agricultural practices have increased crop productivity in recent years but at the cost of soil quality. Soil and plant roots represent critical components in terrestrial carbon sequestration. The physics, chemistry and biology in this zone play central roles in global organic carbon, nitrogen and water cycles, and in a large part drive plant productivity. The opacity of soil coupled with the dynamic nature of the soil-root system have severely limited direct observations that would allow precise interventions as part of soil and plant management. New developments in subterranean exploration technology provide opportunities to probe the intricate relationship between roots and their surrounding soil environment. The investigators will integrate novel biologically inspired robotics; specifically soil endoscopes with fiber optics for soil and near root sensing and root growth and dynamics image capture, and novel soil sensing technology, for measurements of water and soil organic carbon dynamics. Developing this suite of novel tools will enable new means to interrogate the soil and specifically to address questions about roots, the “hidden half” of plants. This interdisciplinary effort has the potential to advance current belowground sensor systems across temporal and spatial scales to enable breeding efforts that directly affect food productivity and security. The project builds upon established programs that stimulate interest and engagement in science and engineering for girls, fosters public engagement in science and promotes training for early-career scientists.The lack of a suitable technology to measure the interplay of roots, water, and carbon directly at the root-soil interface has severely limited the ability to elucidate the temporal and spatial variation in bulk versus rhizosphere soil processes including root-soil hydraulic contact, rhizosphere metabolite profiling and soil organic carbon forms for inclusion in plant breeding and crop management programs. This work has the potential to significantly unravel several scientific questions including: 1) understanding of how plant roots influence the biophysical environment of the rhizosphere, and 2) quantifying how root exudates alter water in the rhizosphere and key processes in soil organic matter formation. The investigators will use two new methods to navigate and sense roots and soils with minimal disturbance. These advances will allow spatio-temporal measurements of the near-root and bulk soil environment, an important yet overlooked component of agricultural systems where the amount of carbon stored belowground often surpasses aboveground storage. Moreover, integration of above – and belowground environmental data in maize field trials will allow for a detailed understanding of the interrelationship of plant phenotypes to soil properties.This award was made through the "Signals in the Soil (SitS)" solicitation, a collaborative partnership between the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.